Giro d'Italia 2016 St 20 Guillestre–S.Anna di Vinadio 134 km

Andre 3000

What an awful two days. Nibali is ruthless though, it was makes him so good.

neris

Cmon little chaves

DDC1990

Brambilla waiting for Jungles might help Chaves.

pelevin

Great comeback for Katusha

MPFGLB

Vino next to cry for the cameras

Kaisr Sose

Not over till the line....Nibles could blow (big effort to gap Chavez and hold it)

This is racing though. Marginal gains right to the end! Beats TDF anyday!

at1withmyself

Nibali looks like he's really hurting so could still blow

RobertKK

Getting interesting again.

RobertKK

Well done Nibali, Lazarus is alive and well.

DDC1990

Well ****it anyway.

pelevin

Nice to see Nibali with Chaves' parents

pelevin

Well that was an unbelievable couple of days racing after what looked like a dull foregone conclusion. In a big way though I think it should be remembered Chaves in a position to lose was itself only a consequence of Kwjk's loss. I've plenty sympathy for Chaves but Kwjk's is the one that for me count as the real heartbreak.

MPFGLB

pelevin wrote: »

Well that was an unbelievable couple of days racing after what looked like a dull foregone conclusion. In a big way though I think it should be remembered Chaves in a position to lose was itself only a consequence of Kwjk's loss. I've plenty sympathy for Chaves but Kwjk's is the one that for me count as the real heartbreak.

Agree SK better GT prospect for me

pelevin

I've an adopted sister from Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan so I'll dedicate this win to her.

Bambaata

Nice one for Katusha after losing Zakarin.

theflamingpig

Such a disappointment. Not happy about Nibali winning.

Andre 3000

Chaves was lucky to even cycle again, never mind compete for GTs after that crash a few years ago. This is just the beginning for him. Two very impressive GT showings in a row, and with quite a limited team compared to the competition around him.

REBELSAFC

pelevin wrote: »

I've an adopted sister from Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan so I'll dedicate this win to her.

And in the spirit of the of the week......The Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko, was born in Semipalatinsk in 1976.

isitraining

Well I guess Nibali proved he deserved all those mobile phones!

MPFGLB

Andre 3000 wrote: »

Chaves was lucky to even cycle again, never mind compete for GTs after that crash a few years ago. This is just the beginning for him. Two very impressive GT showings in a row, and with quite a limited team compared to the competition around him.

Same for Attapuma , Poels , Sergio Henao, taylor Phinney ...all deadly crashes where future unsure and even told to quit by medical staff in some cases. Not to mention of course Contador's brain hemorrhage

Dombroski & todays winner Taarame on the verge of stopping for medical conditions that handicapped their ability and put their futures in question

pajor

pelevin wrote: »

I've plenty sympathy for Chaves but Kwjk's is the one that for me count as the real heartbreak.

I'm gutted for Kruijswijk that he was booted off the podium today. But he held his own for a man with a fractured rib.

Doc07

Exciting stage but very difficult to watch Vino et al celebrate.
I couldn't believe my ears when :eek:Carlton Kirby on Eurosport said ' Nibali is the man making Italian fans believe in miracles' . He actually said that today live on TV. I made my wife listen to it on replay in case I was hallucinating.

pelevin

Before people get too carried away, the main reason anyone but Kruijswicjk won was K crashed heavily. Without a crash his position was basically invulnerable. And we're not talking about Contador, Froome or Nibali at this best here - just a reminder, Steven Kruijswicjk who's won . . . emm . . . not a huge amount till now. Today Nibali finished 13 seconds ahead of Uran & Valverde, & clearly weakening towards the end. And this was I believe the same Uran who has had a pretty dreadful Giro till now. I didn't hear too many paroxysms of disbelief at the dramatic comparative return to form of this rider. Like Nibali Uran returned to something like his proven & expected ability.

Yesterday Nibali took less than a minute out of Chaves - who as shown today was already weakening. Again, without Kwjk crashing, this level of performance would not by a long way have enabled Nibali to win the Giro. So he finished the race very well & showed great guts in doing so. Making out this defies all logic is a total & willful distortion to justify a preconceived bias imo.

Kieran81

Doc07 wrote: »

Exciting stage but very difficult to watch Vino et al celebrate.
I couldn't believe my ears when :eek:Carlton Kirby on Eurosport said ' Nibali is the man making Italian fans believe in miracles' . He actually said that today live on TV. I made my wife listen to it on replay in case I was hallucinating.

was thinking the same myself, there's a fair few times they commentate using phrases such as that when something, that you'd have to be a least sceptical about, is taking place and you'd wonder are they saying it on purpose. i enjoyed the last few days and have no intention of trolling here, but when you see someone like vino in the picture its tough not to feel like its too good to be true

Doc07

I agree with Pelevin that Nibali's rides today and yesterday were not extraordinary and the times gaps were small.

I actually think Nibali did a great job both days and his attacks only gain a minute at most on the strong riders. It's not like a few years ago when people were attacking and taking several minutes.

It's just Astana and Vino are hard to take as a unit. Nothing against Nibali himself and I give him the benefit of the doubt and he has been clean all his career. But still it's hard to get away from the multiple elephants in the room like his doper boss Vino , his manager who managed Pantani and the multiple doper and crucial super domestique Scarponi.

Still can't believe Carlton essentially paraphrased Lance, that was hilarious.

pelevin

Not mad about the sight of Vino myself, Doc, but then only last season plenty people were assuming without apparently a shred of inner doubt that riders like Mikel Landa were way above their credible standard. Some of these simultaneously - and hopefully rightly - considered Sky an ethical team who would only sign riders they were convinced were clean. Then Sky signed Landa. I still haven't seen any person of the mentioned point of view say what this signing of Landa implied. They seem as certain now as to someone like Nibali's wrongness as Landa's a year ago - though presumably if they consider Sky as ethical as they did then, they now believe they were totally wronging the likes of Landa.
Otoh maybe they were right all along & Sky are simply so naive as to have no credibility, or else Sky don't give a damn how their signed riders behaved & so again have no credibility - in which case it starts to seem a bit bizarre having hard notions of absolute good or bad guys/teams to root for.

I also find Nibali's regular fluctuations & struggles to find his best form very human. It is clearly not simply a matter of course for him to turn up, turn the ignition & the super machine purrs at will.

DominoDub

Will the same "Talk" and "Fingers" that are pointing at Nibali be pointing at Sagan in the years to come should he join Astana next season ?

Lusk_Doyle

DominoDub wrote: »

Will the same "Talk" and "Fingers" that are pointing at Nibali be pointing at Sagan in the years to come should he join Astana next season ?

No. Cos he's pure awesome.

Pudsy33

DominoDub wrote: »

Will the same "Talk" and "Fingers" that are pointing at Nibali be pointing at Sagan in the years to come should he join Astana next season ?

The team Sagan is on now are hardly a paragon of clean cycling.

MPFGLB

That is the thing about pointing the finger at any team ..non are paragons of virtue

Previous wisdom on here and other sites were Gramin now Cannondale were above suspicion while Saxo and Astana were worthy of much denigration
But then Ryder Hesjedal was outed ...never came forward
same with the suspicion of riders based on nationality ...does not cut it

Same in relation to the new Bahrain team based on cycling weekly's article.
Firstly I am not sure how true the article is but I would suggest anyone who points finger while Russian teams are ignored or US teams for that matter -A country that jails thousands and thousands of black men with mental health problems in appalling conditions and put lots to death every year

Also to point at Bahrain while filling your car up with oil from Saudi Arabia points to the height of hypocrisy

But so many left wing westerners with a cause have convenient selection of who is good and who is bad